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AN ADDRESS 



PRONOUNCED BEFORE 



THE HOUSE OF CONVOCATION ' 



OP 



BY DANIEL D. BARNARD, LL.D 



Silje Social Snstem 



AN ADDRESS 



PRONOUNCED BEFORE 



THE HOUSE OF CONVOCATION 



OF 



TRINITY COLLEGE, 



HAETFOKD, AUGUST 2, 1848. 



fir 



DANIEL D. BARNARD, LL. D 



PUBLISHED AT THE REQUEST OF CONVOCATION. 



S HARTFORD : 

X/l£/ SAMUEL HANMER, JR. CALENDAR PRESS. 

1848. 



HAU 



ADDRESS. 



Mr. Dean, and Gentlemen of Convocation, 

Trinity College, with its peculiar organization, cannot fail 
to have a good deal to do with the opinions which shall be held 
in this country on a good many questions of great practical im- 
portance, interesting alike to the statesman, the philanthropist 
and the Christian. It has that peculiar organization believed to 
be best calculated to preserve and maintain within itself all forms 
of sound doctrine — not only in religion, but in all ethical ques- 
tions, and all questions touching the relations of men in the 
social state. Like all our other Colleges it has its legal existence 
and government in a Corporation ; but it has an internal organi- 
zation and government of its own, which, in its religious aspect, 
is according to Episcopal forms and polity. The President of 
the College is the Rector of the Academical body, which is 
supervised, in its moral and spiritual interests, by the Bishop of 
the Diocese in which it is situated. It is thus formed into a 
Religious, as well as an Academical Society, and is so far built 
on better foundations than human hands could lay. It is a Chris- 
tian Brotherhood, domiciled in their own Halls of College, and 
devoted to personal cultivation and discipline, and to the business 
of education — to the intellectual, moral and religious training of 
young men. 

A feature, quite novel, I believe, in this country, in the organ- 
ization of this Collegiate Society, is found in* this House of Con- 
vocation. This is the second House of the Academical Senate ; 
the other being the Corporation, consisting of the legal Trustees 
of the College. This House is composed of the Fellows, twelve 
in number, and the Professors of the College, with all persons 



admitted to any Academic degree therein. In this way, besides 
those admitted to degrees in the Arts, or in the higher Faculties 
of Law, Medicine, and Divinity, causa honoris, or ad eundem, the 
ranks of the Collegiate Society are recruited every year with a 
body of young men trained in the Institution, and nurtured in the 
Faith which it professes. Of course the resident members of the 
Collegiate body are comparatively few at all times; the rest are 
found in the community at large, but gather here in Convocation 
in considerable numbers, on stated occasions, like that on which 
they are now assembled. Nor is this House a mere voluntary 
Association, like the Societies of Alumni found in our Colleges 
generally. It has an official existence, so constituted by the legal 
authority of the College, with appropriate duties assigned to it in 
the affairs and business of the Institution. 

I believe I am not mistaken in supposing — at least I hope I 
am not — that, while the higher business of this College is to be 
that of educating young men, having in contemplation an educa- 
tional system somewhat after the plan of the old Universities, 
there is^lso an open design to make this Collegiate body an Aux- 
iliary and^tielper, in its appropriate and subordinate sphere, to 
those other and higher, because divinely-constituted, organiza- 
tions — that of the Family, that of the State, and that of the 
Church — by and through which, indispensably, men are every 
where in this world to be trained, governed, civilized and saved. 
I suppose that the true design and attitude of this College before 
the country, will not be materially misapprehended or misrepre- 
sented, if it shall be regarded and understood as professing alle- 
gience to the Church, as well as to the State, and pledged to 
maintain and teach all forms of sound doctrine, according to the 
only standard of Truth and Duty recognized among Christians, 
touching whatever may affect the social as well as the spiritual, 
condition and progress of mankind. 

Such a College, so constituted and organized, and imbued 
with principles which never have failed and never can fail any 
thing or any body tnat relies on them, must, as I have said, come 
to exercise a marked influence on the opinions and affairs of the 
community. It may be expected that a body of opinion, having 
its foundation always broadly laid in religious truth, and bearing 
on a great variety of practical questions of the highest interest to 



society, will be built up and steadily maintained here, and at the 
same time, represented abroad in the country wherever the mem- 
bers of Convocation may be found. Meanwhile, the members of 
the Collegiate body, through this membership, standing every 
where as the representatives and sponsors of the sound opinions 
maintained in this place, will be multiplied with every revolving 
year ; and when other Colleges, following this good example, 
and organized upon this plan, shall be established and multiplied 
in various quarters, the way may be opened for a better feeling 
of security than can prevail at present, for those principles and 
institutions on which society, and civilization, and all true pro- 
gress depend, against the devices and passions of restless and 
reckless men, by which now they are almost every where assail- 
ed. Such Collegiate societies, so compacted and consolidated in 
moral sentiment, and resting on foundations that can never be 
moved, may stand towards this agitated and abused world of ours, 
in a relation not unlike that of the Breakwater to the troubled 
Ocean — presenting a solid wall, against which all the turbulence 
and fury which rage without may spend themselves in vain, and 
within and behind which the feeblest vessels, as well as the stout- 
est and bravest, may ride in safety. 

The present is a period of great restlessness and agitation 
among the popular elements of the world. The established or- 
der of things is almost every where being questioned, disturbed, 
and, in many cases, subverted. There is a great demand for 
rights, and for the redress of wrongs — which is all very well, only 
one would like to be able to discover, along with these, some 
corresponding enquiry after duties and obligations. While every 
body is thinking of rights and nobody is thinking of duties, it is 
not likely that any very valuable discoveries will be made or 
improvements effected. Statesmanship, or what goes by that 
name, is very much employed of late in teaching mankind that 
political government, even in the mildest and purest form yet 
devised, instead of be'ng something ordained of God, if necessary 
at all is a necessary evil, and is little else any where than a stu- 
pendous fraud on human rights and human liberty, devised and 
practised by cunning and wicked men for their own purposes of 
oppression and profit. Philanthropy, becoming speculative and 
philosophical, seems to discover no way of righting the wronged, 



redressing the grievances and remedying the miseries of man- 
kind, but by turning society the bottom side up, and the upside 
down. Even in Religion, there are so many short and easy 
methods to the conversion of the world, and men love indepen- 
dence so much better than obedience, that any way seems better 
to multitudes of men than the appointed way ; this becomes a 
narrow road which shows only here and there a traveller. Pop- 
ular revolutions are now-a-days effected with strange facility — 
happily with comparatively little bloodshed, even in countries 
little given to change ; and in this country, we have discovered a 
method of revolutionizing a state or government, with about as 
little trouble as a reverse motion is given to the engine of a loco- 
motive, or a steamer. We can go forward, or back, or turn on 
our course by a sharp angle, without seeming to derange the 
political machinery in any sensible degree. All this we do in the 
name of reform and of progress. Men are becoming wise above 
what is written, whether on profane or sacred pages. Govern- 
ment and Law are allowed to have very little stability, and 
therefore command very little respect. And as for the Func- 
tionaries of Government, and the Ministers of the Law, they are 
apt to be regarded, and too often, personally considered, seem 
only worthy to be regarded, not as governers and rulers set up, 
according to divine authority, "for the punishment of evil-doers 
and the praise of those that do well" — not as representing the 
majesty of the Law or of the State — but as servile placemen, who 
perhaps have forfeited their honor in gaining their places, and 
who represent nothing — but a job. 

Perhaps the severest trial to which the virtue of any people 
can be subjected, is when every man has a share in the Govern- 
ment ; for when every one governs, few indeed are willing to 
submit to be governed ; when every one commands, nobody likes 
to obey. Yet the habit and practice of obedience is indispensa- 
ble to the moral health of every people ; and there can be no 
habits of obedience, when there is no habitual reverence or 
respect for the laws, or for the public authorities. No commu- 
nity can very long govern itself by popular forms, which discards 
or turns its back on the cardinal principle of loyalty and obedi- 
ence as a religious sentiment and duty. When demagogues take 
the control of the people, and become their schoolmasters, they 



will very soon be educated out of every true notion of govern- 
ment and every true idea of liberty. Liberty which does not 
consist with government and law, is not that sort of liberty which 
Angels enjoy, and is quite as little suited to the condition of those 
who are made a little lower than the Angels. Liberty without 
government and law, properly befits only those independent spir- 
its, to whom belong 

"the unconquerable will, 
And study of revenge, immortal hate, 
And courage never to submit or yield." 

But not to rest, in what I have to say, altogether in generali- 
ties. Perhaps I cannot better acquit myself of the duty imposed 
upon me here, than by offering to those who are doing me the 
honor to listen to me on this occasion, some obseivations on the 
idea of the Social State, with some reference to the foundations, 
in respect to political organizations, on which Modern Civiliza- 
tion stands, and with some reference, also, to the principles on 
which all improvement and all progress in the social condition of 
mankind must depend. 

It cannot be too often repeated, or too strongly insisted on, 
wherever the truth on this subject is meant to be sternly vindica- 
ted — and in this I do but respond to the sentiment of both the 
eloquent gentlemen who have preceded me in an Address before 
this body — that there are three organizations in the world, of 
special and divine appointment ; that of the Family, that of the 
State, and that of the Church. These are three distinct yet par- 
allel and consistent forms of organic existence and order, which 
together, in their perfection and purity, and according to their 
universality, must give and secure to mankind all the comfort and 
happiness which they are capable of in a life of trial and disci- 
pline. The first of these social organizations, through which the 
human being is introduced into this mortal state, reaches back to 
that void region of nothingness out of which he is taken ; the last, 
through which he may hope to be finally introduced into a new 
existence and a more perfect society, connects itself with that 
boundless Future after which every rational mind lifts a hopeful 
aspiration. 



8 

If men cannot be made happy in this life, in and through these 
three organizations, they cannot be made happy at all. If they 
cannot be made happy in subjection to the fundamental and ne- 
cessary principles involved in these three organizations, they 
cannot be made happy at all. And the great fact in regard to 
each and all of them is this ; that there are laws, to be enforced 
and to be obeyed ; there is authority on one side — authority of 
divine ordination — and there must be obedience on the other. — 
Men can never be happy till these laws, and this authority, are 
reverenced, submitted to, and obeyed. 

There have been a great many devices first and last in the 
world for escaping from the restraints of necessary law and 
authority. Demagogues and disorganizes must be expected to 
go wrong in this matter of course. They go wrong of purpose, 
or they follow a will and way of their own, no matter whether it 
be right or wrong. But there are Reformers, who do as much 
mischief in their way as the others, who yet probably mean well, 
and really desire to serve the interests of mankind in the best 
manner. And there are Philanthropists who devote their lives 
to doing good — and it is really wonderful how much good some 
of them seem to do, considering the perverse and wrong way in 
which they set about it. If these Reformers and Philanthro- 
pists had always kept in mind and in view, the necessary exis- 
tence and sacred character of the three organizations, or forms 
of social life, to which I have referred, with some proper appre- 
ciation of their claims on the reverence and obedience of all men ; 
if their plans had been formed with reference to them ; if they 
had acted, or professed to act, in and through them, and by 
means and agencies strictly auxiliary to them ; it cannot be doubt- 
ed that the cause of Humanity and Civilization would have been 
much better served by them than it has been. Indeed, the 
cause of Humanity and Civilization — the permanent bettering of 
the social condition of mankind — has never been promoted at all, 
by any means or agency whatever which was essentially at war 
with these social forms, or which was designed to operate, and 
did operate, independently of them. 

I recur to the fact, that the necessary constituent parts of the 
social system of a Christian country like this, are the three Or- 
ganizations or Associations, to which I have referred ; namely : 



9 

that of the Family, that of the State, and that of the Church. — 
Let me, in the first place, take a brief view of our Political organ- 
ization. It is in this Political organization that the Social Sys- 
tem of any country has its chief outward expression and mani- 
festation, in the view aud estimation of the common mind. 

The Social System of the country is not a thing about which 
we, or any body who lives under it, may be indifferent — unless 
we are indifferent to life, and nearly all that renders life worth 
having. It touches every one of us very nearly ; it connects 
itself intimately with our life, in all its relations, with what we 
are, and what we have, and what we enjoy, or may hope to en- 
joy. It connects itself intimately with our intellectual life, our 
moral, religious, and social life. None of these could be what 
they are without it. It guards our infancy, it nourishes our 
manhood, it comforts our age — in so far as these are guarded, 
and nourished, and comforted at all in the social state — and when 
it can no longer give us present enjoyments, or we can no longer 
taste or relish them, it comes to us with Hopes and Promises 
that light up the darkness of the Future, and enable us to see 
our children, and those who shall stand in our places, with the 
uncounted hosts to which their numbers shall be swelled in suc- 
cessive generations, fortunate and happy as we have been, and 
perhaps far more fortunate and happy than we have been. 

The first thing to be remarked in this connection is the neces- 
sary existence in every country of a social system of some sort. 
Man is essentially a social being. This is his state of nature. 
He is under a positive necessity to live in society, and form social 
relations with his fellows ; and it is not a mere instinct with him 
to live in society, as it is with many creatures lower down in the 
scale of animal life ; it is a real necessity. He cannot live at all, 
except in the social state — I mean he cannot live as man, he can- 
not be man, except in the social state. He may exist in solitude, 
but undisputed facts have shown that he ceases to be human, and 
becomes the most abject and miserable of brutes. His structure 
and constitution make it just as certain that he was formed to 
live in society, as the structure and constitution of fishes that they 
were made to live in the water, or those of birds that they were 
made to live in the air. His faculties cannot grow, they cannot 
be developed, in any other state, any more than fishea could grow 

2 



10 

in the air, or birds grow under the water. His faculties are 
adapted to the Social state — all of them, moral, and religious, and 
intellectual, and mechanical ; there they have their aliment, and 
find employment and exercise, and get their growth and their 
strength. How else is he to have any affections, reflections, sen- 
timents, opinions, judgments ? These must have related objects 
towards which, or by which, they are to be drawn out and exer- 
cised ; and where else is he to find these related objects % As 
man, his education, the eduction of all the powers and feelings 
that constitute him man, begins in the cradle, and goes on, to the 
grave ; it begins in the cradle, because there human eyes watch 
over him, and human voices are about him, and he is the object 
of human ministrations. He is born into society, and his teach- 
ers are always near him, and if they were not, he would know 
nothing, and he would be nothing, but a very miserable and bru- 
tish animal. On the mother's knee, in the bosom of the family, he 
has his first lessons, reaching the heart, and the fancy, and the 
mind, through the electric chain of human sympathies which 
binds heart to heart, and fancy to fancy, and mind to mind. And 
so the eduction of his powers and feelings goes on, through all 
the stages of his mortal being, and he is man, with the faculties 
and senses, the sense and sensibilities of man. In every new 
condition, in every new relation of life, he receives this education 
and development; in his youth, manhood and age ; in the family, 
the seminary, and the church ; in the walks of pleasure, and in 
the walks of business; in the field, the work-shop, the counting- 
house ; in popular assemblies, in courts, and halls of legislation ; 
and wherever his lot is cast, be it among the great, the affluent, 
the luxurious, or away down among the humblest of his kind, 
where he struggles with the hardest necessities ; be it in pros- 
perous or adverse fortune, in sickness or health, in joy or grief; 
whatever he may be, and wherever he may be, and however his 
life or lot be cast, if only it be among men, in society and not in 
solitude, he is always under instruction and discipline, and always 
receiving this education and development and exercise of his fac- 
ulties — it may be a very partial development, or it may be full 
and ample, according to circumstances and condition ; but what- 
ever it be, and however inconsiderable, he could not have even 
that little in any other way. Man in solitude could not even 



11 

have the faculty of speech ; and as he could not converse, he 
could not think or reason ; he could not have reflection, or sym- 
pathy, or sense, or affection. And what sort of a human being 
would that be ] 

Man is, then, essentially a social being ; and wherever men are 
found on this earth, they are found in society, and with some sort 
of social organization. They live together in the social state; 
and this social state implies organization and regulation, it im- 
plies polity and government. Men cannot live together without 
regulation, without rule, without authority. And this is just as 
much a law of their nature, and a law of necessity, as that they 
should live in society at all. There is a popular phrase, often 
employed and applied to the human being — namely — "living in 
a state of nature ;" and by which it is meant to express, or as- 
sume, what cannot possibly be true, either first, that man as man, 
may live and grow up in solitude, without connection or associa- 
tion in any way with his fellows ; or, next, that men may aggre- 
gate, and so live together in herds, as wild horses do on the great 
prairies, without any principle of association or regulation, and 
with a complete personal independence in each individual — in 
short, that men may live together, without living together in soci- 
ety, without living in the social state. But this is impossible ; 
the constitution of his nature does not admit of any thing of the 
sort. Men must not only live together side by side, but they 
must live together in relationship. Their natures are expressly 
adapted to their living together in relationship. All their great 
interests in life are interests of mutual or reciprocal relation- 
ship, and about these their best and highest faculties and affec- 
tions are employed and exercised. "Without them, indeed, their 
higher faculties and affections would not be developed at all. — 
The relations of men to each other in society, especially where a 
high state of civilization has been attained, are almost infinite, 
and all these bring with them reciprocal obligations and duties, 
and these obligations and duties bring with them in their turn, the 
necessity of regulation, of rule, of authority, of government. 
There has been no society, no aggregation of men on the earth — 
History does not inform us of any — so rude and savage, as to have 
been without somes sort of organization, some sort of rule and 
government. All have had their laws, and some authority by 



12 

which those laws are enforced. Cimmerians, Scythians, Sarma- 
tians, even these had their laws, and their public authority. In 
its more advanced stages, human society comes to be filled with 
complex relations, and is governed by complex laws. And under 
and through these relations and laws men come into life, receive 
nurture, receive instruction, receive protection, establish connec- 
tions, labor in their callings, acquire and hold property, are fed 
and clothed, and warmed, and sheltered in houses, rear and edu- 
cate children, worship God, and so, having finished their course, 
pass away, and sleep in protected, and it may be honored 
graves. 

Of necessity, then, according to the constitution of human na- 
ture, and by the appointment of God, men live together in society, 
in the social state, and under some sort of social organization, 
and civil polity. Every people must have a social system, of 
one kind or another ; it may be very complete, or it may be very 
imperfect. If it be not one thing, it must be another. If it do 
not indicate a high state of civilization, it will indicate a mode- 
rate degree, or a low degree of civilization, or no civilization at 
all. The Social System of any country, as it is found embodied 
in its political forms, may be properly regarded as expressing 
the state of civilization to which that country has attained. This 
is a point of principal interest belonging to the political organi- 
zation ; and another is this ; that it forms and constitutes a guar- 
anty for the conservation and maintenance of its civilization up to 
the point to which it has already been carried. If besides this, 
the political organization be such as to foster and favor a spirit 
of improvement and progress in the line of genuine civilization, 
and so expansive and elastic withal as to comprehend and secure 
every advance that is made, every new point of good and excel- 
lence that may be attained, to the entire avoidance of all neces- 
sity or excuse for violent changes and revolutions, whether bloody 
or bloodless ; if such be the political organization of any coun- 
try, happy and blessed are the people that are in such a case. — 
But, then, they must know and understand themselves, and the 
real advantages of their condition, and they must be capable of 
conducting their affairs in moderation, and under the lead of wise 
and moderate counsels, in order to secure to themselves the 
greatest amount of present benefit and enjoyment, and, at the 



13 

same time, and all the while, to be laying broader and deeper 
the foundations of public virtue and public happiness. 

We will look, then, briefly, at our political organization in this 
country — the forms of our American civil polity. 

Taking, in the first place, altogether an outside view of our 
political organization, we notice here a nation, properly so cal- 
led, and a national government, or central governing power. 
And do not let us make the mistake of supposing that this is too 
common-place a fact, to be of any account or consequence. "We 
could not well be a civilized people without this strictly national 
organization and government. European civilization exists un- 
der this form of polititical organization — about all there is of it ; 
and it is under this form that civilization has made the highest 
advance thus far in the history of the world. 

And let it here be observed, that it took Europe a thousand 
years to reach this advanced political condition. From the fall 
of the Roman empire in the fifth, to the middle of the fifteenth 
century, there was properly no such thing as a nation in Europe ; 
there was no nationality, in the true, modern sense of the word. 
Alfred in England, came nearer to making a national establish- 
ment than any body else in all Europe down to the fifteenth cen- 
tury ; but the English nation was not actually formed and estab- 
lished till the period of the accession of Henry VII., and the union 
of the rival houses of York and Lancaster. Charlemagne was 
the head of a mighty kingdom, but he was not the sovereign of a 
true nation. The idea of a modem nation is this : That it is 
composed of one homogenous people, forming one body, with a 
certain distinctive character, and having a certain principle of 
unity ; occupying a fixed residence and home, that is, having a 
country to which fixed limits are assigned ; and subject, as a 
nation, and in its unity as such, to one central government. There 
must be a people, forming a body politic, having a public senti- 
ment, and will, and wisdom of its own, such as these may be ; 
and there must be a government representing the nation, as the 
Patriarch represents the Family, or the Tribe, and presiding and 
ruling over it. Such is a modern nation with its government. It 
is a political family ; and it was the marshalling of mankind into 
great political families, each having its own proper representa- 
tive and governing head, and in each of which a certain character 



14 

and principle of unity prevails, which marked the era and com- 
mencement of modern civilization in Europe- This did not 
begin, as I have said, till the fifteenth century. It is only since 
that period, that we have the English nation, and the French 
nation, and the Spanish nation, and the rest. The modern na- 
tions of Europe have been formed from elements supplied main- 
ly out of the loins of those wandering and barbaric tribes of the 
great German stock of our race, before which the Roman empire 
fell, and which, finally, spread themselves nearly all over the con- 
tinent. It is these Germans, with the Sclavonic population of the 
north, supposed to be descended from the Sarmatians, as the 
Germans were from the Scythians, which together constitute, at 
this day, the nations of Europe, now the keepers and conserva- 
tors of the highest civilization to which humanity has yet attain- 
ed in the Old World. That is the civilization in which we in this 
country, having a common origin with them, participate ; it is 
that civilization on which, as a general foundation, ours is built. 

Now the great fact which the history of the races to which I 
have referred to, from the time of their irruption into Europe, 
discloses, is that already named ; that modern civilization did not 
begin to show itself till those tribes and hordes, after a thousand 
years of error and confusion, of painful preparation and disci- 
pline, were resolved into distinct nations, with a certain centrali- 
zation of power to form a government in each case, and a certain 
principle of unity and individuality in the nation itself. It is not, 
of course, my purpose to undertake to show the tedious process 
by which this point was gained; that would involve an historical 
review not to be attempted here. It is the fact to which I wish 
to attract your particular attention, as one which all may easily 
verify by a recurrence to the history of the period, and which no 
one already familiar with that history will deny or doubt. 

The political power of Europe for about four centuries, count- 
ing from the overthrow of the Western Empire of Rome, was 
essentially barbarian. Society itself was essentially barbarian. 
Even the Church, as it existed among the German hordes of the 
period, when rude and ignorent men intruded into her sacred 
offices, and priests and even bishops, like Salone and Sagittarius, 
became chiefs of marauding bands, and wandered over the coun- 
try, within their own bishoprics, pillaging and ravaging as they 



15 

went — even the Church was at least half barbarian. This was 
the primitive state of modern Europe, with some partial relief 
from this general condition, in particular quarters. 

The Feudal System, rising out of the bosom of barbarian soci- 
ety, introduced a change, in some respects salutary, but while it 
lasted in its vigor, rendering all attempts, or tendencies, towards 
national formation, and the centralization of power, wholly una- 
vailing and abortive. Causes, however were at work, and events 
came on, which favored the consolidation of states and empires. 
When the Crusades were ended, the power of Feudalism, as a 
political system, was very much broken. The independent juris- 
diction and fierce authority of multitudes of baronial chiefs had 
very much given way. The People began to rise into importance 
and consideration on the one hand, and kings and sovereigns on 
the other. Authority, control, the power of government, nation- 
al sovereignty, was beginning to be centralized and exist in fewer 
hands. And finally it resulted, as I have said already, that there 
arose in Europe real nations, and real national governments. 
Kings began to rule as they had not ruled before ; for it is to be 
remarked that Monarchy was the almost universal form which 
government assumed whenever, and wherever, the Germanic and 
Sclavonian population became really nationalized. At first, how- 
ever, this monarchy was something very different from what it 
afterwards became, or attempted to make itself. It was then 
representative. The great fundamental principle of national or 
popular consent, was recognized as the foundation of rightful 
authority, exercised under existing forms. Monarchy, as a par- 
ticular form of government, was the expression and embodiment 
of the collective will and aggregate wisdom of the nation. It 
was a new doctrine, that which was afterwards set up, that the 
Sovereign represented nothing but his own will, and that he held 
his power, not by any consent of the nation to the Monarchy, as 
a particular form of government, but by an absolute and a divine 
right personal to himself. This was a great error which has not 
been corrected in all cases, without popular revolutions. And 
though examples of absolutism in government still remain in 
Europe, yet it may be safely affirmed that the only kind of mon- 
archy recognized at this day, as legitimate, by enlightened public 
opinion, in any part of Europe, is that which makes the Sove- 



16 

reign only the Chief Magistrate of the nation, the center and 
bond of society, the chief conservator of the public peace and of 
public order, and the chief administrator of the general justice of 
the realm ; representing in his person, the majesty of the State, 
and the will and wisdom of the body of the nation, as expressed 
in the particular form of government which it has chosen, or by 
which it abides, and of which the office of the sovereign is only 
an incident. 

The true condition, then, of civilization in Europe, at the pres- 
ent day, as expressed in the forms of political organization, is 
undoubtedly this : it rests on the general fact that the population 
has come to be arranged into distinct nations, or national fami- 
lies, with a centralized power constituting in each the national 
government ; and it may be remarked, that in these nations re- 
spectively, civilization is more or less advanced, other things 
being equal, as the principle of unity has more or less prevailed 
in the nation, and that of representation in the centralized and 
governing power. 

And now to come back to the more immediate consideration of 
our own political organization. We have here a nation, and a 
national government ; we have this form of civilization ; and so 
far as this is concerned, without any further comparison of polit- 
ical or social systems, we stand on the same line of advance with 
the leading civilized nations of the old world. Now, there are 
two leading points to be considered, in order to determine wheth- 
er the existing condition of our civilization, so far as it depends 
on political organization, is likely to be maintained and preser- 
ved, and what promise there is that any advance or progress 
will be made. These points have reference, first, to the principle 
of unity in respect to the nation — how that principle is provided 
for and secured in its political forms, and how,. if at all, it is like- 
ly to be violated and sacrificed in the progress of events ; and 
next, to the principle of representation in respect to the govern- 
ment — how that principle is provided for and secured, and how, 
if at all, it is likely to be violated and sacrificed. It will not, of 
course, be expected that I should go into any elaborate examina- 
tion of the points of consideration and enquiry here presented. 
I can only speak on the whole subject in the most general way, 
leaving it to every one, as his own inclination or desire may 



17 

prompt, to pursue the investigation for himself in the line of 
enquiry which I have indicated. 

If we go back to that period of most uncommon interest, when 
this nation was formed, when this people became a nation, and 
provided a national government for itself, we cannot fail to be 
struck with the remarkable completeness and perfectness of our 
political organization in both the important particulars to which 
I have adverted. Representation in Government was a thing 
the people had long been familiar with, and if a general govern- 
ment were to be established at all, it could not be bottomed on 
any other principle. But there was a desperate struggle against 
forming a Union; this was the point of difficulty. There could 
not be a nation without it ; and tkere was in some of the States, 
in the smallest as well as others, the same reluctance and resis- 
tance to the plan, arising from the same desire and pride of 
wielding an independent though petty jurisdiction, and a nominal 
sovereignty, which had operated in Europe for centuries to keep 
up the existence of a thousand miserable, independent local ju- 
risdictions and sovereignties, and prevent their fusion, or consoli- 
dation into nations. But when the Union was carried, when the 
States had agreed to consolidate and form a nation, it was seen 
and felt at once, that the true elements of a nation were there, 
and the true principles of national unity to combine and bind 
them in one body. 

In regard to this principle of unity. The people of the seve- 
ral States had been colonists together under the same imperial 
and distant power. They had struggled together against the 
exactions of that power, and what they felt to be evils of their 
political condition. They had gone through a long, exhausting, 
and bloody war together, for their common relief and emancipa- 
tion, which they had secured by common and heroic sacrifices. — 
They were a homogeneous people, having had nearly a common 
origin ; they spoke a common language, and had a common lite- 
rature ; their moral and intellectual training had been very 
much the same ; the principal elements of personal character 
were very much the same in the several states ; and in reference 
to the leading affairs and concerns of human life, they entertained 
views, and sentiments, and feelings, in common, at least quite as 
nearly so as the like thing had ever been witnessed in any exam- 
3 



IS 

pie, or case, of a great community, at all distinguished for intel- 
ligence, in any quarter, or any age of the world ; and, finally, 
though they occupied a country, even then, of very liberal extent, 
which brought the very extremes of climate within its boundaries, 
and gave great variety to their industry and their productions, 
there was a manifest and intelligent bond of union in all the lead- 
ing articles and particulars of their economical interests and bu- 
siness affairs. 

Such, then, was the American people, when by their own vol- 
untary and intelligent act and action, they resolved and formed 
themselves into a nation. They were one people ; one in race, 
in tongue, in complexion, in habits, in ideas, in religion, in feel- 
ings, in intelligence, in moral temperament, in general interests, 
in laws, in manners and customs. And there was something dis- 
tinct and distinguishing about them, which marked and separated 
them from every other people under the sun— even from that 
people which was the great hive out of which they had origi- 
nally swarmed, and with which they had so long maintained an 
intimate political connection. They were American in charac- 
ter ; and not English — they were even then, in the first hours 
and months of their separation, scarcely more English in charac- 
ter, than they were French or German. Their national charac- 
ter was American, and nothing else. And between the extreme 
North and the extreme South, there was nothing more conside- 
rable to break its expressive unity than such agreeable shades of 
difference as might mark the remote descendant of the round- 
head and puritan on the one hand, and of the cavalier of the 
same country on the other : such shades of difference as might 
mark the varying moods of the same individual character, break 
up its dullness and tedious uniformity, and give it animation, 
strength and beauty. 

The advantages of this more complete unity of national char- 
acter to civilization, to the progress of society and of man, are 
in most respects so obvious, that I regret the less the absolute 
want of time on this occasion, to point them out and dwell on 
them. As between any two nations in the world, which are 
equal in other things, in all the other means and appliances of 
civilization, that one which has the superior unity of national 



19 

character cannot fail far to outstrip the other in its career of im- 
provement, of happiness and true glory. 

And in respect to this national unity in the American people, 
— at least looking at them as they stood when first the Old Thir- 
teen came together — I know of nothing to compare with it in 
any considerable nation of Europe. Though Castile and Arra* 
gon in Spain had formed one people politically for more than 
four hundred years before this Union was established, yet there 
is not that unity to-day between them which existed between 
Massachusetts and Virginia in the first month or year of their 
coming together. Normandy and Burgundy, and Brittany in 
France have not yet united, and probably never can unite as 
kindly. It is only that part of the British Isles to which the 
term England is properly applied, which constitutes a nation in 
true unity under the reign of the British Queen. Wales is 
Wales, and Scotland is Scotland still. Ireland is governed more 
like a subjugated province than an integral part of the em- 
pire. 

And there is another important particular in which the empire 
of the European nations, or of many of them, fails of that unity 
which the American nation had as it was originally formed under 
the Constitution. Their governments are not merely national ; 
they are imperial, and rule over provinces and detached or dis- 
tinct districts, as Rome did, till her provinces turned round and 
tyrannized over her. They have their Colonies, as England has 
in the most distant and diverse quarters of the globe — a source, 
no doubt, of great apparent political strength and consideration 
in the scale and family of nations, but a source also of great moral 
weakness at home. England, the home country and nation, 
would be a better governed, a freer and happier, and a more civ- 
ilized country to-day, if she had never had a Colony to look after 
and govern. Colonies stand to the country that owns them in 
the relation of dependencies ; as such, they are held and govern- 
ed ; they are no part of the nation — though they form a part of 
the empire of the governing power ; the government over them 
is one essentially of force, and not of choice or consent ; and the 
consequence is that as soon as they are ripe enough, as Hume, I 
think, has said, they drop off from the parent stem — -sometimes 
they drop off before they are ripe. And this joining of far-off Co- 



20 

louia.I or Territorial possessions, or of incongruous and uncongenial 
districts and peoples, to a parent state by political connection, i» 
a gross breach of the essential principle of national unity ; it is 
tying up so many diseased and corrupting limbs, or so many dead 
corpses, to a living and otherwise healthy body. And this su- 
peradding of the imperial power to the national authority of the 
government, or rather this superposition of the imperial upon 
the national power, so that the latter is often materially overlaid! 
and crushed down with the superincumbent weight of the other, 
bodes no good, it never did and never can bode any good, to that 
portion of the subjects of the empire which properly constitute 
the nation. When a country has as much breadth of territory? 
and embraces as much variety in its population, as can be formed 
into one nation, consistently with the due preservation of the 
great principle of national unity, then there is enough for any 
one government to do to take care of the public interests of that 
nation. And whatsoever more it has to do,cometh of evil, tends 
to evil, and is evil. 

In regard to the principle of representation to which I have 
referred ,' I must now, after the time I have already occupied? 
pass this topic over, with only some very general remarks. 

The true idea of the representative principle I take to be this ? 
that Government, instead of ruling by an absolute, prescriptive 
or personal right, rules under a responsible Trust, and exercises 
only the powers committed to it. Government is a Trust, to be 
executed according to the intent and purpose designed to be an- 
swered by it, and by reference to the will of those who have 
created and established it. Thus, on the one hand, it is the will 
of Gon that government should exert and possess all necessary 
powers, and that it should be exercised for the highest common 
good of those who are the subjects of it. On the other hand, the 
nation itself decides, or it may do soy on the form of government 
it will have, the kind of Constitution it prefers, and how the 
functionaries shall be chosen or designated, and under what 
restriction, or distribution and limitation of powers they shall act. 
In this way it is, that government is a Trust, and is representa- 
tive. And, in view of this fiduciary and representative character? 
it should seem that any Government, which understands the higb 
dignky to which it is called, and the responsibilities it assumes> 



21 

will quite as often, and as anxiously, look up, to see if it is dis- 
charging its great office acceptably to God, as it will look 
abroad among the people for their approval. 

It may often happen, even when the Government is adminis- 
tered most conscientiously and wisely, that it may, for the time, 
be little in accord with the prevailing feelings and wishes of the 
people. Of course, in such a case, they will condemn the admin- 
istration and seek to bring about a change. This they may do 
under the right of Election. The true use of the elective system 
is to enable the people to get rid of bad men and a bad adminis- 
tration ; but, of course, it is just as potent an engine when they 
choose to employ it against good men, and a good administration, 
By the proper use of this power, the representative principle 
may be preserved and maintained ; but with equal facility this 
very power may be employed to destroy the principle of repre- 
sentation, simply by converting the right of election into the right 
of administration and government. Election is itself a Trust of 
a very high character. The Elector does not exercise his fran- 
chise for himself, but for the whole body politic. Properly 
employed, Election would place the administration habitually in 
the hands of the most worthy — twv apioVwv — it would make 
the government an Aristocracy— not in the sense so properly 
condemned in our day—but in the true, original, Greek signifi- 
cation of the term — a government of the most worthy — such a 
government as the country, in fact, once had, if never but once ; 
I mean in the time of the first Congress and of the first President 
of the United States. But Election may also be used to place the 
worst men in power ; to create either a Tyranny — the worst, 
perhaps, with which any country can be visited— the Tyranny of 
petty Demagogues, introduced into power, and supported in their 
pretensions and career, by an inflamed and unreasoning popu- 
lace ; or, a worse state of things still, a rule of mingled Anarchy 
and malignity, under an unrestrained ochlocratic domination. 

Let me be allowed to say, that it seems to me the exercise of 
this eminent right of election by the people, may well be regarded 
as a trial, of no ordinary severity, to which they are subjected. 
Certainly it may be made, and ought to be made, one of the 
highest and most effective means that could possibly be employ- 
ed, for their discipline and cultivation, and for their advancement 



22 

in intelligence and virtue. By the use of this power, they may 
heap blessings and benefits on their own heads ; by the abuse of 
it, they may destroy themselves. It is a means of high political 
and moral discipline, which they have voluntarily taken into their 
own hands, but which they may wrest to their ruin if they will. 
That they should sometimes be misled, and go wrong, ought not 
to surprise, or dishearten, any body. They have the free use of 
a dangerous instrument, and it is not to be wondered at if, now 
and then, they inflict a wound upon themselves. It is in the order 
of Providence, that men and nations should sometimes buy their 
best wisdom at the price of a very dear experience. The point 
for them to consider is, whether they may not, under the lead of 
bad counsels, and of miserable passions, carry their abuse of this 
power, some day, so far, as to forfeit its use altogether, by bring- 
ing in scenes of terror and confusion into the country, in which 
they may riot for a season, but only to end with throwing them- 
selves down at last, to be crushed under an advancing Despotism 
■ — as victims were used to precipitate themselves before the wheels 
of Juggernaut. The point, for those who take any part inform- 
ing the character and leading the opinions of the people, to 
consider is, what they can do to keep the people true to them- 
selves, and up to the high dudes and responsibilities of their 
position. One thing we may count on as pretty certain, if the 
Leaders, Lawgivers and Instructors of the people — if Moses and 
Joshua— be not faithful to their trust, the people will not be likely 
to get further in their way towards the land of political promise, 
even after having once got quite clear of the wilderness, than to 
stand on the eminence that overlooks it. 

Looking back to the period of our first entrance upon our 
political career as a nation, we may, I think, regard the first 
administration of the General Government under Washington — 
clarum et venerabile nomen—°- as showing by a practical and success- 
ful demonstration, the true theory and meaning of our political 
forms, the true characteristics, peculiarities and advantages of* 
our American system of political government, and what rank it 
was entitled to hold in the world as a form of Civilization. The 
question of our progress is another matter. Whether, since that 
period, we have been altogether true to ourselves, and to the 
responsibilities of the eminent position we then occupied ; wheth- 



23 

er, to-day, we could altogether justify ourselves before the world 
for the employment and use we have made of our political and 
social forms ; whether, if we were put to it, we could show very 
satisfactorily, that we have made that advance in Civilization — 
in whatsoever adorns and exalts human nature, and enhances 
enjoyment and true happiness — which the world had a right to 
expect from us, or even that we have faithfully kept that which 
was committed to us ; whether we are a wiser, better and hap- 
pier people now than we were fifty years ago ; whether we have 
been doing all we could, and are doing all we can, to preserve 
the great essential principle of national unity, and that other 
great, essential principle, of representation in goverment ; wheth- 
er we have been strict and vigilant to keep to the practice of 
placing the power of Government habitually in the hands of the 
most worthy, and to preserve the country from the insidious 
spirit and fatal encroachments of ochlocratic rule ; whether we 
have kept steadily in view, as Washington declared the Conven- 
tion that gave us our Constitution had done, "the consolidation 
of our Union" — which he pronounced "the greatest interest of 
every true American;" whether our growth, mighty as it has 
been and is likely to be, is altogether our strength ; whether our 
moral greatness is keeping pace with the expansion of our phys- 
ical and political proportions ; whether we have been always 
and altogether content to be a nation without any aspirations to 
become an empire ; whether the Central, governing Power is, 
and is likely to be, merely national, as it was in the beginning, 
or has come, or is coming, from choice or seeming necessity, to 
be clothed also with imperial dominion and authority ; whether 
we have perfectly understood what kind of progress ought to 
have resulted from our political organization and social system, 
and been content to make that progress the object of our ambi- 
tion and pursuit ; whether we have perfectly understood what 
the true Mission of this country was, and is, and been content to 
fulfil it ; whether, as a nation*, we have always, and altogether, 
pursued such a course and career — for this was our proper mis- 
sion — as ought to commend our system and our example to the 
admiration and imitation of the world ; in short, whether we are 
what we once were, and ought still to be, a nation thoroughly 
grounded in all good and honest principles, and growing in the gra- 



24 

cesof all public and private virtues, under the legitimate influence 
and operation of our social system and form of Civilization ; and 
whether the path we are pursuing, instead of leading us on 
through gloom, uncertainty, confusion, and thick darkness, is 
really one that promises, like that of the just, to shine brighter!, 
and brighter to a perfect day ; these, these all, are questions into 
which I do not enter. I remit them wholly to the consideration 
of those among you who may think they have interest or impor- 
tance enough to engage their deliberations, or their study. 

One thing, however, I will say, on this matter, that though, as a 
people, we may have committed, and are likely to commit, great 
mistakes and great errors, there is yet, I must believe, a princi- 
ple of soundness at the heart of the nation. If there be corrup- 
tion aify where, the young men of the nation, whatever may be 
said of sonie of those who are older and more practiced in the 
world, are little tainted with it. The danger in their case is, that 
they may be swept forward unconsciously, and unresistingly, 
without reason, without examination, without reflection, by what 
is called the spirit or movement of the age ; just as it might be if 
they were standing with multitudes of confident and eager per- 
sons around them on a firm bridge of ice over a broad stream, 
which, however, the advancing season had already loosened from 
the shores, and which was now hurried along by the silent, resist- 
less and majestic current underneath — whither they would know 
not — to what desired haven in the tide of fortune, or to what un- 
happy doom. 

But I turn now to say a word or two on those other organiza- 
tions, or Associations, which I have already more than once refer- 
red to. Along with the State, we must have the Family, and the 
Church. 

And first, in regard to the Family. There is, perhaps, no 
country in the world, thus far, where the sacredness and purity of 
the Family relations have been more scrupulously preserved, 
than in our own. Let us hope that we are not soon to degene- 
rate from this high position. At the same time, it is not to be 
disguised, that there are theories of social reform industriously 
urged on the humbler classes of society, and with no inconsidera- 
ble effect, which are designed, or at least calculated, to strike a 
fatal blow at the family relations. Under the plausible promise 



25 

of improving the condition of labor, Associations are recommen- 
ded which are at war with the sacred institution of the family, 
and indeed with the whole structure of society, and through 
which, if they can have any success, a mischief will be done too 
serious and awful to be contemplated without horror. 

But this is not all. If the Family relations are to be maintain- 
ed at all in their purity, and so as to secure and promote social 
happiness, they must be maintained on the basis on which they 
were originally placed by their Divine Author. The first great 
principle to be preserved is the essential unity of the two persons 
who compose the one head of the Family. "They twain shall 
be one flesh." The union is a mystic one, properly existing only 
under the most solemn religious sanctions, and with which pro- 
fane hands should scarcely intermeddle. Happily for our coun- 
try, as well as for that from which we have chiefly derived our 
political and legal institutions, the system of the Common Law, 
which generally prevails with us, accords mainly with the reli- 
gious view and character of the conjugal relation, and of its 
marital rights. Generally, too, it may be said, that our legisla- 
tion on this subject — at least until within a recent period — has 
not widely departed from the notion and spirit of the original law 
of this relation. Unhappily, however, as it seems to me, a dis- 
position has prevailed of late in some quarters of the country, to 
bring this sacred relation under the rules of the Civil Law — a 
system, so far as it is applied to the domestic relations, as much 
below that of the Common Law, as the Heathen manners and 
philosophy in which it originated were below the sublime and 
elevated doctrines and precepts of Christianity. Just in propor- 
tion as this sacred and religious relation is brought down, bylaw, 
to the low level of a mere civil contract, whether by slovenly and 
unseemly provisions, made for the solemnization of marriage, or 
otherwise ; and just in proportion as the law shall interpose to 
separate the temporal estates and interests of the parties, to 
place them in antagonist attitudes to each other, to afford them 
facilities for causes of difference, and for holding each other to 
mutual accountability in the courts, and, above all, to multiply 
grounds of separation ; just in proportion as these things are 
done, will the religious tie and sanction which give this relation 



26 

its mystic unity be weakened, its purity be degraded, and its sa- 
credness profaned. 

And now in regard to the Church, as one of the three Associ- 
ations of perpetual necessity — this being the most sacred of all — 
which lie at the foundation of the Social System. It cannot be 
necessary, nor, indeed, would it at all become me, to say much 
on this subject, in the presence of those who mainly compose this 
House of Convocation. It is the faith of this College that the 
Church has been constituted, by the will of its Divine Founder 
and Head, in a particular manner, and according to a particular 
form of organization. It is deemed essential that this organiza- 
tion should be preserved, in order to maintain the sacred authority 
of its ministry, and the proper discipline of all its members, and 
to make the Church the Pillar and Ground and Witness of the 
Truth. Those who associate in this College intend, I believe, 
to maintain this doctrine in this place, as every where else, leav- 
ing to all others, of course, the same liberty of free opinions 
which they claim for themselves, but humbly hoping to set an 
attractive, and, if possible, a convincing example of the excel- 
lence and efficiency of their faith before all the world, in the 
eminent practical good which they shall finally accomplish here, 
through their strict adherence to religious principle, and to the 
established Law of order and Authority in the Church as matter 
of religious principle, in all their plans and efforts to promote 
Education, and sound Learning and Morality. 

Out of all doubt, the moral training of mankind — since this 
cannot be separated from religion — is committed to the Church. 
The law of Justice, the law of Kindness, the law of Charity, the 
law of Brotherly Love — these are never taught and enforced 
effectually on men any where but in the Church. True Liberty, 
true Equality, true Fraternity — these are taught no where but in 
the Church. Political leaders and social reformers, who never 
look to Christianity and the Church for the meaning of these 
terms and the doctrines properly involved in them, are only blind 
guides to lead the people to their destruction. It is in the Church 
that the true nature of the Family, and of the domestic relations, 
and the duties involved in them, are taught and enforced, and no 
where else. And here, and no where else, are taught the true 
character of political government, its divine authority and sane- 



27 

tions, and the religious duty of reverence and obedience on the 
part of all its subjects. Here, too, and no where else, may be 
learned the true nature of the relations which men sustain to- 
wards each other in the varied business and multiplied opera- 
tions and affairs of active life, and the duties and demeanor proper 
to every station and degree of human existence. And here, and 
here only — in the principles and doctrines of Christianity, main- 
tained and enforced in the Church, sternly inculcating the Faith 
once for all delivered to it — will be found, according to my hum- 
ble but undoubting convictions, the true method of solving all 
those appalling difficulties which now so disturb and distract 
communities and nations under the agitations set on foot by igno- 
rant or unprincipled men, growing out of the relations between 
Property and Labor, and between the Rich and the Poor. 

When every man shall be of the exact stature of every other 
man, and every soul the exact pattern of every other soul; when 
infants shall no longer be born into the world, but full grown 
men and women; when time and chance shnfll happen in exactly 
the same measure, to all; when none shall be younger or older, 
feebler or stronger, simpler or wiser, than any and every body 
else ; then I suppose we may expect to see that precise equality 
of condition — that mathematical dead level in society — which 
some modern philosophers seem to dream of as a state of human 
perfection and felicity. So long, however, as men shall continue 
to be born, and live, and die, after the present fashion — so long 
as the Sermon on the Mount does not become obsolete, and 
wholly inapplicable, in every lesson and precept, to men in the 
social state — I suppose we must expect to see great diversities, 
oftentimes painful ones, in their condition and stations in society ; 
we shall still have men of property and men of toil, masters and 
servants, employers and employed, rich and poor. And so long 
as this shall be the state of human society, I believe it will be 
found, after all struggles to escape from it are over, that there is 
only one effectual method of bringing about a real and lasting 
improvement in the social condition of men, and that is by bring- 
ing them together in one Brotherhood of Love in the bosom of 
the Church, where all alike, of every grade and condition, shall 
become the teachable and willing subjects of its doctrines and its 
discipline. The poor will never be provided for as they ought 



28 

to be, or cared for as they ought to be, till the time shall 
come, as come it will, one day, when in every parish they 
shall be the voluntary charge of the local Christian fellow- 
ship of which they form a part. The great economical and 
social questions between Capital and Labor, which are now 
fast separating into hostile classes those who ought to be 
friends, as being mutually dependent on each other, though in 
different degrees, and between whom unwise men and bad men, 
are every where busy sowing dissension and bitter enmity, will 
never be satisfactorily adjusted and settled until the parties shall 
be brought together in a school and fellowship which shall make 
them the brethren of one sacred Household, and where they shall 
be mutually as willing and anxious to understand and practice 
their reciprocal duties towards each other, as they are now to 
understand and insist on their respective rights. When they shall 
come to meet, as brothers, around a common altar of worship, in 
the communion of the Catholic Church, then, and not sooner, will 
they learn to do that willing justice to each other, without strife 
or envyings, which no laws, and no social organizations, under 
mere civil authority, can ever teach, secure or enforce. I am 
not preaching a sermon — that is not my calling ; but I am endea- 
voring to state and insist on an economical truth. I am looking 
after the means of improving the social condition of mankind, and 
I happen to find them just where the Church finds and offers the 
means of their salvation.* 



* After these remarks were prepared, the writer saw a notice of 
the death of the celebrated Chateaubriand, the author of the "Genius of 
Christianity." Dying as he did at Paris, in the very midst of those awful 
convulsions through which Society was then passing in that unhappy 
country, the testimony which that remarkable man left behind him is very 
striking and instructive, and deserves to be preserved and pondered. I 
quote from the notice referred to : 

"A few minutes before his death M-de Chateaubriand, who had receiv- 
ed the sacrament on Sunday, embraced once more the cross with the 
emotion of a lively faith and firm confidence. One of the expressions 
which he repeated most frequently of late years was, that the social ques- 
tions which agitated nations at present could not be solved without the Bible, 
without the soul of Christ, ivhose doctrines and example have denounced 
selfishness, this gnawing worm of all concord. Thus M. de Chateaubriand 
hailed Christ as the Saviour of the world, even in a social point of view, 
and he loved to call him his King as well as his God." 



29 

The question, after all, is, in what is our hope ? How shall 
the advantages of our social position be best secured, the hazards 
to which we are exposed avoided, and our progress in true feli- 
city advanced ? Others may rest their hopes in other things — in 
a thousand new devices which ingenious men are always ready to 
invent for the sovereign cure of all political and social ills. For 
myself I choose to trust first of all to those Appointments and 
Associations which were ordained of old, by a better wisdom 
than that of men ; and then to Agencies subordinate and auxilia- 
ry to them. Society must rest on the Family, on the State, and 
on the Church, as organizations of divine ordination. The Fam- 
ily must be held sacred ; Government must be respected and 
obeyed, and the Church loved and venerated as a heaven-born 
mother. Education is the great auxiliary agency to be relied on. 
But our Educational plans must stand on the right foundation, or 
incalculable mischief instead of good, may be done. What that 
right foundation is men will differ about. What it is in the esti- 
mation of those who compose this Academical Society is suffi- 
ciently shown in the manner in which this Institution has been 
organized. 

Dis te minorem quod geris, imperas ; 
Hinc omne principium, hue refer exitum. 

Hor. Carm. VI. Ad. Rom. 

Let the plan adopted here be carried out, and this example 
be followed elsewhere as it ought to be, and Education will 
stand on higher ground in this country than it has ever stood on 
before. Society is swayed and governed by opinion. We say, 
let the College stand, every where, by the side of the Church, in 
its efforts to keep the moral sentiment of the country sound and 
steady, and we need not concern ourselves much about the rest. 
Political and social tranquility and felicity will be easily secured, 
when Faith, Truth and Principle shall have that sway over the 
minds of men which they ought to have — and which they must 
have before their social condition will be essentially improved. 

Hoc opus, hoc studium parvi properemus et ampli, 
Si patriae volumus, si nobis vivere cari. 

Hor. Epist. III. Ad Jul. Flor. 



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